Firt Time Comparisons

I recently looked into starting Muay Thai after finally finding a place to officially train (I had been doing my best to study and learn on my own as best as possible in the mean time).

I found a place called the Domination Gym in my area. I had to pay up front R1400 before being able to attend a lesson. They do BJJ, Muay Thai and Boxing and I had let the instructor know I wanted to start with Muay Thai.

I arrived a little early and watched the Technical Boxing class and watched the instructor sparing in particular and his form (from what I could tell was very good - though his stance seemed very wide but then maybe this is normal for boxing). When he was done I paid and asked what next and he said grab a rope and start skipping the lesson is about to start.

So I grabbed a rope and started and the junior instructor came about 5 - 10 minutes later and simply said different exercises for us to do without actually explaining what he meant. For example: He said do 50 push ups and I started doing pushups then noticed the people around me were do these kind of half burpy things so I copied.

When it came to actual punches and stuff he simply said grab mats and do X uppercuts and X left jabs/right straights, etc. He didn't really explain anything and pretty much seemed to assume everyone knew what they were doing. I noticed small things like people not using there whole body (hips, waist, legs, etc when throwing hooks and so on and he wasn't saying anything). When I did ask him about instruction he watched me and said my technique was very good (guess self training works... hmmm). But did mention I was dropping my guard a lot - which I was.

Then I started to wounder why no kicking or knees or elbows and why the form was different to what I had been learning in my own Muay Thai studies and then only at the end of the lesson I found out it was a beginners boxing class and not the beginners Muay Thai (which is great when I had made a point of stating I wanted to start in the Muay Thai).

Anyway, need to go and will give more info later (as well as for a Judo place I signed up to)...

It says they have BJJ Black Belt but don't say who it is... that's odd.

Last edited by BackFistMonkey; 5/05/2017 5:57am at .

“I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.”
BILL HICKS,
1961-1994

Originally Posted by Jean Paula-Satire

Never believe that the GOP and fellow bigots are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The bigots and Republicans have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past and that besides, they have already won

“I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.”
BILL HICKS,
1961-1994

Originally Posted by Jean Paula-Satire

Never believe that the GOP and fellow bigots are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The bigots and Republicans have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past and that besides, they have already won

CONTINUED

Noticed some spelling errors on my original post but can't seem to edit it. Most don't matter, the part where it says "grab mats" was supposed to be "grab gloves".

Anyways, on with the second part:

After my bad first time with the MMA gym I also tried out a Judo class. I wasn't really intending to start a Judo class but was looking around out of interest. I ended up finding an email listed for a guy named Rob Jordaan (old 5th Dan) and sent a mail through to him. After one or two backwards and forwards emails where he asked my age and area, he sent me his lesson times and told me to come along a try it out to see if I like it. I didn't even ask for a free lesson, he just offered one to me.

On top of this, I mentioned it to my wife and took her along without being able to mention it to him and when we finally found the place he was more than happy to let her also try it out for free. (Though in the end she was a little scared and decided to watch instead).

The guy was rather fat, but after speaking to him for a while and asking various questions I was satisfied. There was a class before us but I'm not in any way familiar with Judo so couldn't tell if the techniques were good or not. His juniors had mostly yellow and orange belts with no high grades. The class I tried had one blue, one green, one orange and the rest whites.

Right at the start of the lesson (after some light warm ups) he selected one of his students and got him to take me to the side and work on some Ukemi with me and then a basic throw while the rest of the class carried on. Then he came over to me and asked the student how I was doing and got me to show him. When he was satisfied he joined me to the class which was basically him showing and detailing a throw then having everyone practice it with their partner (I was still with the same guy). He did this for two different throws then got everyone to pair up for randori. He selected my pairings for me every time he told everyone to change partners. He told them to go easy on me but I did ask the guys sparring with me to challenege me. The first guy was okay, the second guy was almost impossible (but really fun), the third guy went easy on me and was more focused on teaching me technique.

After the lesson my wife said she was interested in joining and we went and spoke with Rob. He charges R600 ($44.70) for three months per person. But he asked us how we are for money and offered R600 total for both of us. He also told us that we must go at a pace we are comfortable with. If we want to do it to join his competition guys or simply for fitness or even just for fun, he wouldn't mind and would help us accordingly. Then when I asked him for the papers to join he said don't worry about it yet, just come along again next week and see if you still like it.

Obviously I'm in no position to judge if his Judo is actually any good, but from what I can tell he is legitimate and the first impression with him was so drastically different to the one I had with the gym...

Noticed some spelling errors on my original post but can't seem to edit it. Most don't matter, the part where it says "grab mats" was supposed to be "grab gloves".

Anyways, on with the second part:

After my bad first time with the MMA gym I also tried out a Judo class. I wasn't really intending to start a Judo class but was looking around out of interest. I ended up finding an email listed for a guy named Rob Jordaan (old 5th Dan) and sent a mail through to him. After one or two backwards and forwards emails where he asked my age and area, he sent me his lesson times and told me to come along a try it out to see if I like it. I didn't even ask for a free lesson, he just offered one to me.

On top of this, I mentioned it to my wife and took her along without being able to mention it to him and when we finally found the place he was more than happy to let her also try it out for free. (Though in the end she was a little scared and decided to watch instead).

The guy was rather fat, but after speaking to him for a while and asking various questions I was satisfied. There was a class before us but I'm not in any way familiar with Judo so couldn't tell if the techniques were good or not. His juniors had mostly yellow and orange belts with no high grades. The class I tried had one blue, one green, one orange and the rest whites.

Right at the start of the lesson (after some light warm ups) he selected one of his students and got him to take me to the side and work on some Ukemi with me and then a basic throw while the rest of the class carried on. Then he came over to me and asked the student how I was doing and got me to show him. When he was satisfied he joined me to the class which was basically him showing and detailing a throw then having everyone practice it with their partner (I was still with the same guy). He did this for two different throws then got everyone to pair up for randori. He selected my pairings for me every time he told everyone to change partners. He told them to go easy on me but I did ask the guys sparring with me to challenege me. The first guy was okay, the second guy was almost impossible (but really fun), the third guy went easy on me and was more focused on teaching me technique.

After the lesson my wife said she was interested in joining and we went and spoke with Rob. He charges R600 ($44.70) for three months per person. But he asked us how we are for money and offered R600 total for both of us. He also told us that we must go at a pace we are comfortable with. If we want to do it to join his competition guys or simply for fitness or even just for fun, he wouldn't mind and would help us accordingly. Then when I asked him for the papers to join he said don't worry about it yet, just come along again next week and see if you still like it.

Obviously I'm in no position to judge if his Judo is actually any good, but from what I can tell he is legitimate and the first impression with him was so drastically different to the one I had with the gym...

Its really hard to go wrong with Judo. Your experience with Judo is fairly typical its largely a not for profit martial sport.
Quality can be roughly judged on how well they do in competition. However the real truth of the matter is at the end of the day if you enjoy it, are learning new things you can pull off in randori and are not getting injured, you found the right place.

Of the single rapier fight between valiant men, having both skill, he that is the best wrestler, or if neither of them can wrestle, the strongest man most commonly kills the other, or leaves him at his mercy.
–George Silver, Paradoxes of Defence

CONTINUED: FIRST BJJ NIGHT

Okay, so just came back from my first BJJ class at the Domination Gym.

First off, this was a MUCH better experience than with the boxing which was supposed to mave been Muay Thai (yeah, I'm not letting that go anytime soon....)

Anyway, turns out there are two instructors, the black belt (whom I still don't know) and a brown belt (whose name I have already forgotten). The brown belt took the class at the gym today. He was very polite and the evening was nothing like how I pictured it.

It started off with some very basic warm ups: neck bends and twists, wrist and arm twists, arm swings and a kind of reverse push up where you had to lie on the floor and pull yourself up using the sleeves of your partner's gi.

I ended up being paired with a purple belt and the first exercise was taking turns trying to get a hold on your partner's trouser legs for six seconds with both hands while they prevent it. After that the brown belt showed a mount position and the purple taught me to shrimp, some hip bucking thing and how to throw someone off you using said hip buck thing. He also showed me one arm bar and we would stop the shrimp/hip buck practice whenever the instructor would explain a lock/hold/position etc.

Then to end things off the purple belt rolled with me which turned out to be interesting - but when I did get an advantage (he was going easy on me) I had no idea what to do with it. He then rolled with the instructor and it was weirdly intriguing. The purple was struggling so hard but the brown seemed to so effortlessly slide from one position to the next - though he looked more like he was thinking that actually fighting with physical effort.

Afterward, a few students came up to me - as well as the instructor and all in all it was actually a really fun evening which felt like it passed very quickly.

It doesn't seem all that stamina intensive, but my fingers hurt something awful...

My main issue was that I hope that I can develop a mind (or whatever you would call it for this) as even though I understood what they were doing when showing techniques, I couldn't see them the same way I see stand-up techniques. When I watch stand up fighters it's so easy to see all the small stuff and every part of what their bodies are doing and why - but when it came to watching the BJJ I felt so stupid as I can't see the moves in the same way. Hell, I can't pull the moves apart at all...

Other than that, the evening was insanely fun and the instruction quality and atmosphere were good (but I of course can't comment on the actual skill level of the instructor as I have zero knowledge in this area).